MATCH-DAY noise at Everton FC’s proposed stadium will be as loud as a vacuum cleaner for neighbouring families in Kirkby, according to an acoustics expert.

Jim Powlson, a consultant for Manchester based WSP Acoustics, speaking on behalf of Tesco and Everton at the stadium planning inquiry, said people living on the Grange estate would have to cope up to 73 decibels at worst and that fell within approved guidance.

But Andrew Pykett, sitting on the bench alongside planning inspector Wendy Burden, accused Mr Powlson of picking and choosing which bits of guidance he accepted.

He said: “It’s almost as if you’re extracting the bits that suit your argument.”

He asked why Mr Powlson had chosen to rely on the environmental nuisance regulations which govern acceptable levels of noise at pop concerts, when the stadium proposals rule them out.

Mr Pykett said: “In short, you don’t need as much noise to affect amenity as you do to get on to the level of an environmental problem.

Instead, he suggested the noise assessment used a set of criteria that the stadium development would easily meet.

But Mr Powlson said that, in fact, he had used pop concert codes as well as planning guidance to determine whether the stadium would affect its neighbours.

The impact was considered “moderate adverse” at worst thanks to the stadium’s enclosed design, he concluded. Although he declined to answer why no roof had been used as in the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff to contain noise, despite frequently referencing it in his written evidence.

Even if the stadium doubled in size, he continued, the noise level would only go up by three decibels.

Mr Powlson also faced two hours of grilling from The Grange Residents’ Association, allaying fears that construction work would damage their buildings.

He said it would take considerably greater levels of vibration than would occur with this development to cause structural damage.